Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (30 October 1966-7 June 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh, was the leader of Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad from 1999 to 2004 and the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq from 2004 to 2006 - therefore, he is the real founder of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). al-Zarqawi was the main leader of the insurgency against the United States and United Kingdom in Iraq during the Iraq War from 2003 until his death in 2006 in a drone airstrike.

Biography
Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh was born on 30 October 1966 in Zarqa, Jordan, 13 miles northeast of the capital city of Amman. He became a violent habitual criminal involved in as many as 37 incidents, and was also an alcoholic. In 1989 he traveled to Afghanistan, hoping to fight against the Soviet Union during the Soviet-Afghan War, but by the time he arrived, the Soviet Army was already withdrawing. He instead became an Islamist newsletter reporter and was friends with Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. Known as "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi", Fadeel became a feared man, especially while he was imprisoned for having guns in his house. In 1999, he founded a training camp for al-Qaeda in Herat, Afghanistan, and also created the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad Muslim terrorist group in Iraq. He learned to speak Pashto while in Afghanistan and married a local woman before moving to Iraq with $200,000 from Bin Laden. His new group hid out in Iraq and planned to carry out terrorist attacks there, while al-Zarqawi helped to train Jordanian militants in Afghanistan. In 2001 he suffered cracked ribs while fighting to repulse the United States and United Kingdom's invasion there, and in January 2002 he had medical treatment in Iran. Iran refused to extradite him to Jordan, and he later headed to Iraq to lead his group against the 2003 American, British, and Coalition invasion.

al-Zarqawi returned to his terrorist haven that he set up in Kurdish northern Iraq, and he fought against the Coalition invasion. In 2004 he was responsible for the video beheading of journalist Nick Berg and was the man who personally beheaded Owen Eugene Armstrong on video as well. He was implicated in the killings of 700 people in Iraq, including United Nations Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello in the Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad, and he became infamous as a deranged killer. He was also the leader of a terrorist network: he was linked to Abu Taisir and Abu Ashraf, Abu 'Atiya (leader of the ricin operation in Pankisi Gorge of Georgia) and Abu Hafs al-Urduni (the fellow Jordanian leader of al-Qaeda operations in Russia, who was also related to the United Kingdom poison cell, in turn affiliated with the Spain cell), and Abu Hafs and Abu Atiya's imprisoned al-Qaeda contact, who was in turn linked to Merouane Benahmed and Menad Benchellali.

Death
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was tracked down by Task Force 145 to Baqubah after Iraqi officials tipped them, and the building that the Iraqi government identified was tracked for six weeks with help from al-Mukhabarat of Jordan. al-Zarqawi was spotted entering the building and two F-16 jets dropped two 500-lb bombs (a laser-guided GBU 12 and GPS-guided GBU-38) on his house. al-Zarqawi was mortally wounded while his adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman was killed. al-Zarqawi was dragged on a stretcher for a while, but he died of his wounds. The US government distributed a photo of his body that was later criticized for being in questionable taste, and it also rallied al-Zarqawi's militants against the coalition.